Boom Hall Trust
Harnessing the Natural Environment of Boom Hall (Derry) to Enhance the Resilience, Health & Wellbeing of Local Young People
Overview and Objectives
Accumulating research evidence demonstrates that green spaces provide vital pathways to wellbeing, reducing socioeconomic health inequalities, facilitating healthy, sustainable activities and promoting enhanced mental health. Shared green spaces facilitate attachment, improve community cohesion and connections with others while providing opportunities for education, recreation and voluntary initiatives. The promotion of physical and psychological wellbeing for all also represents one of the core UN Sustainable Development Goals (Goal No. 3) and nature based interventions may aid further progress in this domain.
The proposed project aims to promote lifelong mental wellbeing in the Derry Community by connecting people with the natural environment and historic landscape of Boomhall and the River Foyle. Boomhall Estate is a rich natural asset; a historic demesne of 30 acres on the banks of the Foyle, and a site of ancient cultural significance. It is currently an inaccessible and untapped resource which has the potential to become a nexus for a wide range of health promoting and community enhancing interventions.
The intergenerational transmission of trauma stemming from The Troubles is well documented and suggests a need for support of young people in Northern Ireland – those born since the troubles ‘inherit’ anxiety, and depression and a level of emotional reactivity that can set thescene for ongoing vulnerability to physical and mental health issues. Nature based interventions at Boomhall have the potential to not only activate healing through nature connectedness but to promote resilience which acts as a protective buffer against future adversities. Resilience can protect from life’s daily stressors and equip young people with the essential capacities to overcome personal obstacles and take on new challenges in their own lives. It is intended that the Boomhall Estate will become a hub for young people where positive habit formation through nature based, sustainable activities can inspire personal growth, mould identities and promote long-lasting psychological resources.
Activities/Outputs
The current study intends to focus specifically on the Key Stage 2 cohort of children (7-11 years of age) within the Derry region. This particular group have been identified as being an underserved and overlooked in terms of the provision of programmes and supports to assist in the development of key psychological skills required to enhance their capacity to overcome the day-to-day challenges, foster resilience and overall psychological wellbeing and set the foundations for flourishing and realising their full potential in their lives.
By homing in on this particular bracket of young people, the programme will take a proactive approach to the promotion of positive mental health in the Derry region. Young people will be equipped with an array of positive skills and resources, which will help them to successfully navigate their way through the challenges which will invariably arise as they move into their more turbulent adolescent years, when the peak age of onset (14-18.5 years of age) of many mental disorders has been identified (Solmi et al., 2021).The current study will harness the restorative and health promoting capacities of the natural environment, helping young people to reimagine and redefine themselves through the establishment of a meaningful and psychologically nourishing relationship with the natural environment in their local area.
Impact
It is hoped that the proposed project will aid the breaking of the intergenerational link to anxiety, depression and emotional reactivity by cultivating a more optimistic and hopeful mindset and enhanced resilience and mental wellbeing amongst the target group and, more broadly, within the wider community. The project aims to encourage the formation of positive and healthy behaviours, and pro-environmental attitudes and sustainable actions from an early age through increased connection to the natural ecosystem and landscape of Boomhall, and a series of resilience building activities. The project also hopes to cultivate an increased awareness among the target group and wider community of how their actions affect sustainability and how they can engage in pro-environmental behaviour.
